Tag Archives: content marketing

As the list of 2014 social media and content marketing predictions winds to a close, what canorganizations really take to the bank this year?

Download this complimentary report of the Top 10 Rising Stars, RIPs, Marginals and Rebounds from an academic perspective that attempts to winnow the wheat from the chaff. In addition to rationalizing the hottest trends in social media and content marketing, we also examine the comeback potential of traditional media caught in the social, local, mobile (SoLoMo) tsunami.

Synthesizing over 200 expert predictions from the social media and content marketing world, we concluded the following.

After combing through scores of predictions on what will happen in 2014 with social media, you have probably seen a pattern. Social media and content marketing will be more about honing strategies, leveraging big data, hosting micro-videos and getting serious about ROI. But how can we distill from these predictions a manageable set of planning inputs to our operating budgets?

To begin, let’s consider what impacts the planning process. Many of the predictions relate to strategy development across marketing, advertising and brand development. Other predictions cover the environment as it relates to user expectations, media ecosystems and changes to expect in our operating infrastructures. The rest provide insights as to what business models are likely to succeed.

Strategic Summary of 2014 Social Media Predictions

Strategy

Strategy in this social media Zeitgeist can be summed up as one of streamlining and seamlessly blending into our audience’s social experience. Consider the streamlining in your plan as the typical steps taken by companies during a lean recovery state. During these maturation stages, we begin to prune away the experimenting of shiny new objects and focus more on the most likely to payoff.

This usually leads to greater attention on integration and execution and less attention on experimenting.So for many brands and small businesses in 2014, there will likely be heightened attention on what really contributed to lead generation and conversion. As a result, the merits of content that shows promise in stimulating engagement will weigh more heavily in budget decisions than the merits of content reaching the largest audience.

Consequently, engagement metrics (e.g., comments and shares) will be more important than vanity metrics (e.g., likes and followers). The seamless blending of content into our user experience streams has much to do with separating ourselves from the clutter. One way to do this is by adding value to the content our audience is actually seeking. This should translate into more purposeful content pieces that reach our audience in the right way, at the right time and in the right mood.

Strategic Planning Implications from 2014 Social Media Predictions

Content Strategies

Content marketing strategies will have to be more justifiable and hyper-focused. The goal here is to boost conversion rates at the expense of more fans and followers. One way to start on track is to repurpose curated content.For example, consider how you can regularly reach a targeted audience at many points in their buying cycle by recasting your content into several blog pieces, podcasts and videos. Not all of the content has to be original.

Your audience merely wants a reliable source that answers the mail briefly and immediately. The latter suggest you repurpose the content on whatever platforms your audience prefers at the time.This leads to another planning adjustment. 2014 may be more about smart content distribution than content development. In order for conversion rates to go up, budgets will have to shift more towards channel placement.

And with pay-for-playsocial advertising on the rise, this will mean more investment in reaching your targeted audience.Finally, nearly every social media and content marketing expert agrees that “creating for mobile first” should be foremost in our content marketing thinking. With mobile access to social media expected to exceed desktop access in less than 2 years, expect successful brands to invest heavily this year in responsive mobile websites.

Brand Engagement Strategies

Many predict that 2014 will be the year where real-time mobile customer engagement, brand storytelling, influence marketing and share-worthiness is seen as the key to deeper engagement. With noise levels skyrocketing, more brands are recognizing that engagement will require more than promised benefits. Brands will have to inspire and entertain more than ever.

By storytelling, brands have an opportunity to develop a loyal following that is far more interested in stories than brand messages. In addition, more brands will be expected to adopt their own media studios and newsrooms as tight control of the brand story requires a more immediate response and authentic voice to their target audience. Although the cost to operating plans seems onerous at this point, longer-term savings are likely to result as in-house control of the brand story leads to a more reliable boost in engagement.

Advertising Strategies

Here is where we see a great deal of consistency among predictions. 2014 will be the year where paid social ads will be adopted reluctantly by brands as perhaps the only way to maximize their reach in social network news feeds. At question, however, is the timing of native advertising as a core element of content marketing plans.

Sponsored or branded content will be key to separating brand stories from the noise of too many brands now competing for diminishing social ad attention. Much of this content will likely be niche-specific and of high enough quality that followers recognize immediate value. And to provide this value, brands may have to consider longer-form content. Jay Baer even suggests this will be the year that Advertorial 2.0takes hold.

Marketing Strategies

As the quality of data surrounding our prospects has drastically improved, more brands will likely exploit the ability to know what audiences are doing at a certain time and place. Add to that the knowledge gained from behavioral tracking and social profiles, we have an excellent formula for hyper-targeting. And much of the technology is here to pull it off. In 2014, however, it is premature to estimate the impact that a combined SoLoMo-Pro (social, local, mobile, information) will have on market planning.

At minimum, however, expect brands to be ramping up for the use of predictive analytics in retargeted advertising. Experience in this level of behavioral targeting can then lead the way for contextual marketing that supports a real-time and locally relevant shopping experience.Another trend to expect in 2014 is the growth in agile video marketing. Expect brands to embrace their own newsrooms as mobile users become accustomed to getting rapid response news on breaking stories.

Infrastructure

As in any plan, a survey of our surroundings help us understand the landscape of competition and technology constraints. Most likely to materialize this year is:

A technology that is analytical and possibly wearable

Data that is important for ROI

An audience tweeting with TV

A referee, called Hummingbird, that will level the playing field for true content contributors

Content platforms meant for the short-lived and easily escapable

2014 Predictions for Social Media Infrastructure

Technology

Much to the credit of big data, an estimated 20% of US display advertising will involve programmatic ad buying. The rapid growth of brands flocking to the programmatic buying process will likely continue as over-stretched marketing resources seek efficiencies from automation.Social networks are dramatically changing the landscape of TV marketing and will certainly impact planning for 2014. The market for second screen for global social TV is expected to reach $250 billion over the next 3 years.

As the sale of iPads and smartphones continue to skyrocket, expect the same growth in TV viewers interacting with live show content.One area still in question is the role of wearable technologies. Glassware, smart watches and wrist-ware are still serving the early adopters in an application seeking mode. Although Google Glasses is often sported in the media as the high-concept wearable tech product of the year, its future is still uncertain. At most the market will still be in its nascent stage. So small businesses, in particular, may be wise to holding off any plans to gear up for wearable device optimizing.

Social Search Engine

Google’s Hummingbird is being greeted with mixed responses. It is good news for legitimate content providers and bad news for black hat SEO spammers. We finally have a search engine who is penalizing SEO link spamming and magical keyword stuffing. Hat’s off to Google and their semantic oriented search algorithm for coming pretty close to a fair measure of legitimate content.

Content marketers would be wise to provide high quality, in-depth content that resonates with topics most sought after by their target audience. And think video first, video second and video third.The same will apply to search algorithms inherent in the social networks and their tagging or hash-tagging formats. Those that provide engaging and highly shareable content will ultimately win out on exposure.

Platforms

Here also is where there is a great deal of consistency in predictions. Brands should devote an inordinate share of resources to short-form visual content. Video content will benefit search. Short videos in particular will appeal to the limited attention span of today’s audience.And perhaps more than before, we are seeing evidence that consumers expect content to fit the platform.

So think erasable video on Snapchat, gifs on Tumblr, 6-sec videos on Twitter Vine, infographics on blogs and photo rich content on Facebook.At the same time, brands inundated with multi-platform involvement are turning to fusion marketing to integrate their traditional and digital marketing tools.

By working off one platform or dashboard, they hope to manage and benefit from multiple campaigns launched from one place. Investments should also be considered for the development of niche oriented apps. This growing field of Friend-of-Mine apps is likely to materialize this year as more consumers recognize the value and handiness of self-help mobile apps.

Success Models

A successful business model could be summed up as serious and laser-focused. Successful brands by the end of 2104 will likely attribute their success to hyper-targeting. Rather than seeking new ways to acquire fans and followers, this will be a year of measuring, re-calibrating and reloading.

Business Modeling Implications of 2014 Social Media Predictions

Common to most business models will be a subscription-based approach to engagement. This bodes well for email marketing services and will likely put in question the need for RSS.Brands will be looking at courting highly qualified leads with pinpointed solutions to each need across the entire buying stage. Big data and closed loop analytics will then validate what tactics worked best toward conversion. And if not conversion, expect brands to measure retention and influenceas a proxy for business to come.

This will also be the year that brands formalize their involvement in content marketing. The arrival of more Chief Content Officers and more formalized social business set-ups will likely pave the way for new social talent and enterprise-wide collaboration on social intelligence gathering and social listening. More importantly, 2014 will likely see PR and customer service finding their way into social media marketing.

Companies will capitalize more on the power of employees as brand advocates.And with this greater commitment to a social business, more pressure will be placed on marketing, in particular, to validate a greater amount of budget requests with hardcore ROI measurements now available from online tools and cloud-based databases.

Social Experience

Of all the crystal ball predictions, this area of planning is perhaps the least suspect. Here is what we know for certain. Millenials, in particular, are flocking to ephemeral media sites in droves. Facebook’s offer of $3 billion for Snapchat was just topped by Google for $4 billion. So it is safe to say, Millenials want erasable media.

User Experience Implications from 2014 Social Media Predictions

We also have ample evidence to suggest that the deteriorating attention spans of Millenials will accelerate the arrival of contextually relevant content. So expect location based services to rapidly adopt social context as well. And as the momentum of early adopters builds, inside shopping assistance will become an expectation.

In the interim, many predict that Twitter Vine will flourish in this next year as applications for “how-to’s,” and “where to find” will augment the earlier and more limited functions of geo-targeting. Now imagine what this does to our customer service departments as target audiences become addicted to getting what they want NOW.

Finally, consumers will recognize all the more in 2014 that the power of conversation rests in their hands. Brands will have to compromise their desire for storytelling with allowing fans an opportunity to share their experiences.In return, fans will expect to be inspired and entertained if brands want their continued involvement. This will pressure more brands to step up their social customer service as fans will expect immediate reaction to their socially registered complaints.

Summary

Arguably, 2013 was a lackluster year of new technology. Wearable technologies were a disappointment; and perhaps the only shiny new object warranted our attention was Snapchat.Instead, we witnessed the maturation of content marketing and how the social dominion went from publishing to sharing to repurposing curating content. Much of this new wave emerged from the media fatigue that forced many brands to adopt smarter and more proven approaches to their social media marketing efforts.

That is why many experts are predicting 2014 to be less about breakthroughs and more about hyper-targeting, optimizing and fine tuning strategies. What’s more, plenty of evidence is mounting that marketers will be less concerned about reach and more about impact as executives press them for measured results. Much of this impact will likely come from legitimate, high quality content as Google’s Hummingbird algorithm makes it increasingly more difficult for SEO spammers to muddy the waters.

So which of these predictions will likely present the biggest challenges to entrepreneurs in 2014?

If you assume that most social media experts are correct in their predictions, then we are likely entering a year of:

Open Secrets

Personalized Anonymity

Erasable Relationships

Paid Trust

Unwinding Fatigue

Longer but Shorter-Form Content

Smaller Use of Big Data

Interrupting Permission Marketing

Edutainment

More Exact Estimates

Social Technology

Acting Naturally

A Pretty Ugly Facebook

In summary brands should focus on building lasting, but ephemeral relationships using outbound techniques for inbound marketing in an anonymous, but highly personal media. What’s wrong with this picture?

Open Secrets

Call it social privacy, the term itself is a contradiction. But consider this paradox in objectives. Organizations today are arguably more concerned about data security than ever before. From Edward Snodan’s Big Brother NSA revelations to HealthCare.gov’s security concerns and Target’s massive data leaks, security breaches have made more brands sensitive to their domain privacy.

At the same time, they are embracing cloud resources more than ever to help scale their social media participation. It sounds like they are taking measures for their public space to be private and their private space to go public?

Personalized Anonymity

Following the Weinergate saga and other public snafus, consumers are also getting sensitive to their social privacy. The early successes of Snapchat and Whisper are testimony to the rising popularity among Millennials to erase any potential of wrongdoing or less than desirable make-up.

Personalized Anonymity

At the same time, we expect high-context content to reach these audiences with hyper-targeted precision that is now possible from knowing what they like, where they are, what they are doing and who they are with. So are we trying to find out as much as we can about anonymous fans?

Erasable Relationships

And don’t forget to build lasting relationships and lifetime value with these folks before the media expires. You have 6 seconds to make that happen on Vine. If they are using ephemeral media, you better hit the resend over and over and over.

Ephemeral Media: This Tape will Destruct in 5 Seconds

This tape will self destruct in 6 seconds.

Paid Trust

Most agree we now have to pay-to-play for fans to notice our posts in their News Feeds. But wasn’t the purpose for maximizing organic reach to reward routine engagement of communities with relevant content? In return, these brands would be rewarded high exposure from those that supposedly know, like and trust the brand. So doesn’t ”pay-to-play” imply “buy my trust?”

Unwinding Fatigue

A common complaint cited in many 2014 social media predictions relates to social media fatigue. The reduced attention span of consumers is pressuring brands to consider shorter bursts of video based content.

But wait. Don’t forget to pack more into our audience’s decompression time. Podcasting and wearable computer technologies are expected to rise in popularity as burned out content users seek more ways to cram in content at the gym, in the car and on the couch.

Interrupting Permission Marketing

Do you remember the early definitions of inbound marketing or permission-based marketing? We were avoiding the use of interrupting and non-permissive advertising techniques which were more about “telling us” rather than “inviting us.” The concept relied on the use of social media and content marketing to earn the attention of prospective customers.

This contrasted to the more interrupted style of broadcasted, outbound marketing. But with a deluge of competing content, many brands are quickly resorting to the promotion of links and social ads to their content. i.e., we are using outbound approaches to trigger our inbound marketing.

Longer but Shorter Content

Many experts predict 2014 will be the year where attention span deterioration forces a greater consumption of short-form, video content. Consumers will expect 15-second Instagram videos and other micro-content. And many experts agree that short-form will trump long-form in viewership and engagement.

At the same time, top social media forecasters are predicting an inordinate rise in longer-form content as brand publishers response to what Google’s search algorithms prefer in their high quality content assessments. So the long and short of it is: ”Tweet a teaser to your richer media experience and more complete brand story where and when Google’s Hummingbird and a more available audience will give you the time of the day.”

Smaller Use of Big Data

Big data is the arguably the most cited trend in 2014 social media predictions. We have reached a point where massive amounts of contextual, historical and real-time data will be married to predictive behavior models for the perfectly hyper-targeted and behaviorally matched content. And all of this will be consumed on a smartphone, wristband or tiny watch.

Big Data for Smaller Screens

Edutainment

Marketing in the year 2014 is often referred to as the age of engagement, entertainment and education. So we are being entertained and educated at the same time? How cool is that? Why couldn’t Sister Jolene understand that? We were only disrupting her teaching in response to the entertainment value she apparently didn’t recognize.

More Exact Estimates

Almost every 2014 social media prediction claims this is the year we crack the social ROI code. Really? So through native ad tracking and other big data revelations, we will now know the return on influence?

Granted our measurement methods are far more precise than what we could muster up from traditional advertising. But even the most trackable content marketing program requires a great deal of time to get real data. The most we could probably expect from recent advances in closed loop analytics and big data are more exact estimates.

Social Technology

This is perhaps the ultimate oxymoron. If anything, the emergence of wearable and other social technologies has hijacked relationships and promoted an anti-social atmosphere. If we are truly saddened by the hyper-texting culture witnessed during Thanksgiving dinner, imagine the deterioration of intimacy and conversation when Google glasses hit the market.

Act Naturally

With videos taking over content marketing as perhaps the most often cited 2014 prediction, brand publishers will have to develop a personal touch. One way to avoid the often criticized “corporate-speak” demeanor is to make a personal connection through a likeable persona. And to do this effectively, many social video experts suggest that we simply act naturally. Got it?

But aren’t we then acting? Or are we being natural? Or perhaps we are innately acting out our alter egos in a staged enactment of who we really are not but could be in a contrived natural setting. Maybe we should just be ourselves.

Pretty Ugly Facebook

We knew it was a matter of time before the once darling of the social media world lost its luster. Millennials, in particular, are flocking to Tumblr, Snapchat and even Twitter as their distrust and dissatisfaction with Facebook grows. And by earning the lowest score in the business value, marketers have expressed their disappointment in Facebook as well.

And with the recent strides made by Pinterest, a revamped Google+ and a LinkedIn Pulse/Slideshare/Hootsuite make-over, it’s no wonder Snapchat refused to bite on a $3 billion offer from Facebook. Only time will tell if pay-to-play will be the bane of its legacy. But for now, Facebook is looking pretty ugly.

You may know that over 1 million apps are downloadable on an iPhone. But did you know why businesses are counting on these apps to reshape their marketing?

Just at the point where you may feel comfortable sporting your inbound marketing badge, you may want to research this new generation of Friend-of-Mine marketing.

As explained well in Jay Baer’s book Youtility, smart marketers are finding clever ways to befriend consumers addicted to “self-help” apps while reinforcing their brand image in the process.

From “Top-of-Mind” to “Frame-of-Mind” to “Friend of-Mine”

Let’s first rewind. For years, marketers counted on Top-of-Mind awareness to reach audiences. So after constantly hearing AFLAC!, AFLAC!, we would remember them if and when we become a prospect. This assumes a great deal of consistency, channel breadth and cash.

But along came search engines and social content marketing. This shifted “Top-of-Mind” to “Frame-of Mind” awareness. The goal here is to align your problem solving content (e.g., webinars, eBooks, blogs, etc.) with targeted audiences precisely when and where they are in their buying cycle. This inbound marketing approach is less intrusive than Top-of-Mind and is based on the generous giving of helpful content.

Enter the “App” Generation

Big brands see the move toward mobile apps as a way to engage in Friend-of-Mine marketing. The concept works like this. Charmin’s “Sit or Squat” app allows you to download a map of rated restrooms in your area.

Why would they do this? Hopefully, you will associate Charmin’s brand with helpfulness while inviting them into your circle of friends. Okay, that might be a stretch. But imagine seeing only this brand name at the time of need.

The Geek Squad is often questioned why their self-help electronic repair videos don’t jeopardize their own repairs. Instead, they find the typical overextended gadget fixer searching for a bail-out. Upon witnessing the Geek Squad’s expertise, they make the call. This “Let me Help” form of marketing” is not employed as a sales tactic but as a way for the Geek Squad to become a friend. But in the process of helping, they undoubtedly generate new demand.

A widely downloaded app for stain removals is sponsored by Clorox. Although much of their researched advice goes well beyond the scope of their offerings, they can actually stimulate new demand as users consider new possibilities for stain removal. Similarly, Ortho has an app that will help you identify and treat harmful weeds in real-time. Whose weed killer and fertilizer are you going to remember?

Friend-of-Mine Marketing Offers Entrepreneurial Advantages

Small businesses are also capitalizing on low cost app development to offset the high costs of top of mind advertising. Consider how Columbia Gear has an app to explain the various knots to tie when engaged in outdoor excursions. Rather than sporting ads for their outdoor clothing, they are banking on your befriending them at a time when you might consider their products.